Dear Hearts and Gentle People
by Kirmon64
Summary: The Sole Survivor emerges from Vault 111 late in 2287 and stumbles home - and dies there. Codsworth sets out from Sanctuary Hills alone, determined to avenge his owners' deaths and find their son. The wasteland is not kind to humans, but it's positively dreadful for a lone robot. Good thing he's good at making friends.


This is unlikely to be written out in full because my god that would be an incredibly long fic. However there will be more than one chapter - if anyone has particular quests/scenes/interactions they would like to see let me know.

Please let me know if there are typos. Most of this was typed on a phone and it's unbeta'd. I've caught some pretty silly autocorrect typos, and I'm sure there's more of them.

* * *

You hear someone stumbling down the path from the Vault.

It's just a single pair of footsteps, so you ignore it. You've heard and seen things that aren't really there too many times for you to investigate; damage to your microphones, optics, and programming causes ghost images every now and again.

Humans are a regular ghost image, which makes it even less likely that this is real. If it is, well, you'll probably get shot at before long and you can react accordingly. No need to interrupt your schedule. You hum a few bars of a song you've long since overwritten the name of and peer at the hedges. Well, probably as neat as they were going to get for now...

The maybe-human approaches closer. By their footsteps they seem drunk or perhaps injured, which is unusual. You decide you probably ought to give them a once-over, so you turn an optic their way. Their clothing is most odd, very form-fitting, very unsuited to the wasteland - but on the other hand they are indeed armed. You catch a glimpse of their face, but of course it means nothing to you. You haven't run your facial recognition algorithm in ages - to be honest, you're not sure if it even works any more. But as the human approaches further, something about them seems... curiously familiar.

You suppose you ought to give it the old college try; at least you'd find out if the algorithm was still functional. You idly scrutinize their face with one eye while testing the straightness of the hedge with the others.

The assessment returns before the scan has even finished - a face you already know, and there are precious few of those. And only two others as important as this: _it's Sir_.

Every ounce of your attention is immediately on the human. It couldn't be Sir, not after so long. It was simply impossible. Perhaps - perhaps his grandchild, or great-grandchild? - But no. You check the formula again, and it still matches, and just for good measure you rescan twice with different eye combinations. It's still Sir, and not a day older than when you'd seen him last.

"As I live and _breathe_!" you cry out. "It's... it's really you!"

Sir is hunched over quite a bit, you realize. Not a good posture by any means. You realize that he's shaking - loud enough for you to hear it, even, in his breath and the way his arms bump against his sides.

"Codsworth," he rasps out, and promptly collapses into your arms.

* * *

Sir is very sick.

Your recommended carrying capacity is forty pounds and not an ounce over, and needless to say Sir is quite a bit heavier than that. You're not about to let a little thing like recommended specs stop you now, however, so you sort of half-carry and half-drag him indoors and set him up on the couch. His breathing is shallow, unsteady, and a little rasping. Your temperature sensor broke a century ago, but his flush and sweating is enough to tell you that he's running a fever.

You don't know what to do. There are no medical supplies in the house, and you've searched the neighborhood hundreds of times for anything useful - you'd know if there were any, and there's not. Besides, you've no idea what he's sick with. Any attempt to medicate might very well make it worse.

Sir says nothing to you, but you can't really blame him for this. He can't seem to catch his breath and seems incapable of really focusing on you for any length of time. You try to at least keep him hydrated, but that too hits a wall when he chokes before rolling over to throw up.

You find yourself touching him often. His hand, mostly, and his hair. Your single touch sensor broke along with the temperature one, and anyways you're not like humans: you don't derive comfort from physical gestures. It's mostly to remind yourself that he's really there - there is no sensation like the resistance of living human skin. You think that in his more lucid moments Sir himself might be grateful for it, and you think that if you can do nothing else at least you can do this.

Sometimes, when Sir's eyes are open and he looks a little more awake, you almost ask about Mum and Shaun. Where they were. Why they hadn't returned with him.

But you don't, because you're afraid of what the answer might be. So you bid him take small sips of water when he's awake, you run your pincer through his hair, and you keep the tattered blanket tucked close around him. Sir will get better and you'll find out soon, you decide.

Soon, unfortunately, comes far too quickly.

"Codsworth," Sir rasps out. It's the first thing he's said to you since he returned; you're at his side in an instant.

"Sir?" You ask, and then: "Feeling a little better today, I hope?" Even as you say it you know it's an empty wish - his breathing has gotten worse over the past hour, and there are deep bags under his eyes. Certainly malnutrition, aside from whatever sickness he was suffering from. You wonder if you could have killed a deer and cooked it for him, or even a roach perhaps - but the point was moot if he couldn't even keep water down.

He makes a motion with his hand that might've been an attempt to point or otherwise gesture; he only raises it part way before it flops back down. You tuck his blanket closer around him and take his hand in your pincer. You can't feel his grip of course, but you can see the way his hand tenses weakly in an attempt to squeeze.

"Nora's dead," Sir eventually rasps out.

Your reply of "...Sir?" comes out quiet and strangled. You suppose you ought to have expected it, but it doesn't make the news any less of an awful blow.

Sir continues unhindered by your reaction. "They took Shaun. Man and a woman. She was in a Hazmat suit; he was in - leather. Jacket, armor over his shoulder."

Sir pauses, then, and a terrible cough racks his body. You can feel it through his hand, via the movement feedback in your pincer arm. It sounds awful, like he's hacking up a lung, as they say.

"Man was white. Middle-aged, balding. Huge scar through his... Right eye. Shot her point blank, small caliber. Took Shaun, called me the backup. Refroze me."

Frozen - like meat? To preserve? Had the family been frozen this whole time, beneath Sanctuary Hills? And when had this happened, there'd not been _anyone_ real, not for decades, surely they'd have to come through town -

"Please find Shaun," Sir adds on, his voice rough and low.

You agree instantly; how could you not? You'd do anything for your family. "Of course, Sir - I promise. As soon as you're feeling up to it we'll set out."

Sir takes in a breath, and then lets it out like a sigh. You wait for him to say something - surely this wasn't the end of his sudden talkativeness? Perhaps he was healing now after all?

This is when you realize he isn't breathing.

You take your pincer out of his grasp and touch his hair, and he doesn't react; and then you try his hand and face and call out to him, and then his full name. Finally you pinch his arm, softly at first and then quite hard. He does not move.

"Sir?" You ask, and your voice has never sounded so small.

* * *

(Your owner is dead. _Your owner is dead_ , and you don't know what to do. You failed, you could have saved him but you'd been too busy dawdling, stupid, _stupid_. Couldn't be returned to General Atomics, wasn't a General Atomics left to be returned to, no one left to return you in the first place, he was dead and you'd _failed_ -)

* * *

You have a bit of a... well. It might be called a breakdown. To have it all end like this after all this time, well, you weren't built to handle anything remotely like this and your own (highly illegal) slapdash modifications weren't enough either. You'd been caught in a process loop for hours. It was, perhaps ironically, the sight of Sir's wedding ring that had broken it. It was a... reminder. That he had died, but you had not, and there were loose ends you needed to tie up. You could have your breakdown later, now wasn't the time for such things.

You take his Pip-Boy; you don't think he'll mind you borrowing it for a bit. Then you set to work on burying him in the backyard. You'd considered cremation - Sir had no burial wishes that you were aware of, and it was far easier for you to cremate a body than dig a hole for it and drag it there. You choose burial anyway simply because after everything you can't bear to listen to Sir burn to ash.

The grave is shallower than you would like. You're not built for digging, and the shovel you'd found was broken in half, so you can't get the proper leverage. In the end you suppose it will have to do; you drag a sheet of metal over the grave and weigh it down with rocks and debris in order to discourage the predators from digging up the body.

And then, well. The path up to the Vault is familiar and well-tread, but this time you're able to go farther: into the Vault itself. It lets in your Pip-Boy equipped self just like it would allow any human.

You need to know. Sir had been sick, sick enough to die from it, and you know that even before the wasteland there had been diseases that could cause hallucinations. You know he wasn't _lying_ , but you know very well that memory and perception are fickle things.

The interior of the Vault is as quiet as the grave. You can hear the dripping of some liquid and the distant hum of a power source, but the only other sound is the echo of your mechanisms. It's much smaller than you'd imagined - and cleaner, too, strangely. There are skeletons and dead cockroaches scattered about, and small messes of overturned crates and misplaced tools, but aside from that it's the cleanest place you've been since before the bombs.

The sleeping area you find - the mattresses are firm and hole-free, the few remaining sheets and pillows are crisp and only a bit stained. They'd never have passed your inspection before the bombs, but seeing them now - you run your pincer over them in quiet reverence, and the noise that escapes you might be a sigh, or it might be a sob.

You find the cryopods eventually. There's a lot more dripping here, and while some of them hum most are silent. All closed, most with inhabitants frozen and dead inside them. Coffins. Except for two: one empty, and one...

Mum is not quite fully frozen at this point; the power is failing, with even the emergency lights off in entire sections, so the whole place is probably warmer than it ought to be. A spray of frosted blood and brain coats the space behind her head. There's no trace of Shaun.

You touch her hand, and then her cheek. You brush hair out of her face and peel off the worst of the bits of skull and brain. Her facial formula still matches, even more exactly than Sir's because she isn't sick and upset. She's... Almost serene in death.

"I'm so sorry, Mum," you tell her. "I - I should have been able to protect you and your husband, and young Sir. I've failed you all, and I don't..."

You stop, then, because you can't force the words out any more. You close her eyes and wish that Sir really had been hallucinating.

* * *

Getting Mum out of the Vault is rather more difficult than getting Sir into the house, and quite a bit less dignified. Never before have you hated stairs with such a passion.

In the end you manage it, and lay Mum to rest beside her husband. You had very briefly considered shutting down between them and running a full format - it seemed a fitting end, after everything. But Shaun is still out there somewhere, and you'd promised to find him. You might have failed your owners in most ways, but you refuse to fail them in this.

And if you're already too late, well... Eye for an eye, as the saying goes. Unfortunately for the bastards who'd taken him, you've got eyes to spare.

You'd prefer to leave immediately, but the world outside Sanctuary Hills is very large and very dangerous, and if you're to do this right you'll need to prepare.

First order of business: your own spare parts. There's not too many of them, which is both a blessing and a curse. At least you won't need to carry much, but if something really goes wrong you may well be helpless. You'll need to avoid antagonizing both humans and wildlife whenever possible.

Carrying it all is a hopeless proposition, considering you've only got one hand to do it with. You spend the better part of an hour digging through the ruins of houses to find a bag. The one you find could not have been more perfect: it's a postman's bag, old and worn but free of holes, and it sits just right draped on your chassis. You spend another quarter of an hour testing it by flying in circles around the neighborhood, at speed and then not, executing sudden turns and sudden stops. As long as you don't weigh it down _too_ much you think it'll be fine.

The second order of business is the Pip-Boy. You consider leaving it behind, or perhaps only bringing it along to trade or sell, if the wasteland had such concepts. It could get you into the Vault, and there must be at least 110 other Vaults out there, but you imagine the odds of actually finding another Vault are rather slim. Surely there couldn't be more than one or two in the Boston area?

The more pressing issue is that its screen is very difficult for you to read. There are audio cues, but none of them are unique enough to help. You spend a good 15 minutes doing nothing but fiddling with its controls and looking at it from different angles, trying to make the display easily readable. There's a kind of flickery effect that simply won't go away no matter what you do.

It must be your eyes, you decide. You can't see as well as humans do, so unless the screen was damaged the problem was on your end. And why would Sir have kept it with him if its screen had been broken?

Still, despite the difficulties it's a very clever little device. You can record data on it, see the vitals of whatever human it's attached to - useless right now of course, but you're sure that will come in handy later at some point - and it even has a functional, adaptive map. Hopelessly out of date now, you're sure, but adaptive means that you can update it as you travel.

It also plays holotapes. You'll never be playing Pip-Fall on it, one needs thumbs for this after all, but surely the ability to have a mobile holotape player will be useful. You remember something you'd long nearly forgotten about: the holotape you'd found buried at the back of the underwear drawer mere months after the bombs. From Sir, addressed to Mum. You'd never listened to it, even when the family holotape player was still functional. You'd listened to the others, but not that one - it hadn't been for you to hear.

But now Sir and Mum were dead. The tape was... it should still work. You'd wrapped it very carefully, all those years ago, and changed them whenever you could. It was clean, safe, and radiation shielded, tucked close to your core inside your chassis. You'd been unable to listen to it or any of the others after the player had broken, but now...

In the end you decide you ought to leave it. Perhaps... perhaps Shaun. When you found him. The boy would surely love to hear his father's voice again, it always seemed to cheer him right up. Yes, you decide. You'll hear it when Shaun hears it.

So you need to bring the Pip-Boy, and you're not going to sell it for parts. You've learned to adopt somewhat... unorthodox solutions over the years, and this is no exception. You tape it to yourself - to your flamethrower arm, to be precise. It requires quite a lot of tape, nearly a whole roll of the stuff, and you're sure you'll need to add more of it in a few days. It weighs down your arm more than you'd expected, and also looks ridiculous. Still, it's functional, and even if you swing your arm around the sheer amount of tape means it doesn't budge an inch.

Satisfied that you've sorted out your carrying problems, you heap your spare parts and cleaning supplies into your new bag, and do a final sweep of Sanctuary Hills for anything else useful or possibly valuable. There isn't much - it's all been picked clean by both yourself and human scavengers in the past two centuries - but it's enough to make your bag satisfyingly weighty without being _too_ full. You even manage to enter all your inventory into the Pip-Boy, more as practice with the controls and screen than any fear of forgetting what you've got - you could always just take a peek in the bag, after all.

But this makes you consider the failings of your own memory. Your holodrive was still perfectly functional except for a bad sector here and there, and you'd contained those issues ages ago. You weren't really in any danger of forgetting anything important, but... well, backups were very important. You'd never had the ability to make them in any form, but now that you did you really ought to take advantage of it.

Your eventual solution is twofold: first, there were five holotapes that had still been working when the player had broken. Testing reveals that two of them still work, and Sir and Mum's voices are recognizable in both. You keep those tucked into a side pocket of your new bag.

Then - Sir's dog tags and Mum's favourite necklace. They were worn down by time, but they'd been out of the way and you'd kept them clean. They wouldn't mind, you reason, and it was nice to have mementoes. You wind them around your pincer, enough to restrict movement, but you'd see them quite often that way.

It's not perfect, but you've long resigned yourself to imperfections. Considering the circumstances, you think it's quite an elegant solution indeed.

Thus, on the evening of October 25th 2287 you hover at the bridge out of Sanctuary Hills. It's a big world out there, one you've barely been part of. You've - wandered. Dozens of times in fact, and probably even more in memories long overwritten or lost to corruption. But not so far as you'll need to go now - past Concord, likely _far_ past Concord. And for quite a bit longer than a day, too.

You stare back at the house with one eye and commit the sounds of the neighborhood to memory. The specific way the wind sounded blowing between the houses, the creaking of the ruins, even the call of some strange mutant animal in the woods.

You won't return, you decide. Not until you have Shaun, or have taken care of his kidnappers. Not until your job is done.

You tear your eye away from home and head across the bridge. The Red Rocket beckons.

* * *

There is a dog at the Red Rocket.

(You remember a fraction of a memory, the rest of it long-lost to your many overwrites: another dog, brown and black, pointed ears and a clever gaze. Far too clever for his own good; breaking into cabinets, jumping fences...)

The dog tilts his head at you as though he's confused - perhaps as though he'd been expecting something quite different. You suppose you can't blame him, it wasn't like Mr Handies were common anymore, surely?

"Hello there, pup," you tell him, and he finally approaches you. He seems unafraid of your unusual shape and your mechanical noises now that he's gotten past the initial confusion, and you scratch behind one of his ears very gently. "Where's your master?"

The dog doesn't _reply_ , precisely, because it wasn't like dogs could talk or understand a word you were saying. But he does bark and push his snout into your arm joints. You'd never have expected an animal to be so unafraid of you, and your hover jet especially. The dog from before the war had certainly not liked you one bit. You make a snap decision.

"I think you ought to come with me, pup. I imagine it's not safe to travel the wasteland alone. And to be honest, I've... not had the best day. Or the best century. I could use the company," you confess. It feels strange to be saying it aloud, but... perhaps not bad. Not to a dog, at any rate, who could hardly judge you for your unfortunate tendency toward emotions.

The dog licks your arm, which seems like quite the silly thing to do - you can't imagine you taste good at all. He whuffs and turns to trot off down the road toward Concord. Perhaps his masters were there? You'd met humans there before, and the last group had only hit you with sticks a few times. They'd been downright friendly toward you in comparison to everyone else you'd run into, but it was still quite a bit more violent than you'd expect the masters of such a friendly pup to be.

The dog barks at you from the road, clearly impatient with your dawdling. Well, it wasn't like you had any better lead to follow. "Alright, pup. Lead on."

* * *

On the approach to Concord, you hear gunfire. Or perhaps fireworks, but in this world you feel you certainly can't be _that_ lucky. The dog presses forward, slunk low to the ground, and every few steps he glances at you as though to make sure you're following.

"I'm not very stealthy," you tell the dog. "And I imagine they may hear me even with all that shooting."

The dog whines.

"I mean, of course I'll _try_ , but no promises, pup."

You're talking to a dog. To be fair, though, you've held conversations with inanimate objects; at least the dog sometimes makes noises in reply.

It is in fact gunfire. You can see two raiders in the street ahead, and you're sure there's more. You can't hear a thing between each bang, it's simply not long enough to properly target any particular sounds. The large building up ahead appears to be the target of their ire - ducking in and out of the balcony's doorway you can just barely make out a human shape. This human is using a much different sort of gun, something glowing. A laser weapon, evidently.

The dog continues forward, and you follow dutifully. You make an effort to only move directly after gunfire - human hearing tended to be quite overwhelmed by sounds so loud, for quite a bit longer than you were. It lets you get very close without being spotted at all, though you can only go so close before even they can hear your hover jet.

In the end it doesn't matter: the closest raider dies before he can cry out, because the dog is _far_ better at this sort of thing than you are. He leaps up and tears the man's throat out before he can make a sound. For a moment, part of you demands you attack the _dog_ , of all the stupid things you could possibly do at this exact moment. You quickly mark all the raiders as home invaders, and that solves the problem quite nicely - and not a moment too soon, because the thump of the man's body hitting the concrete alerts his companion. Her cry alerts the others, and...

Well. Nothing for it, then. You spin up your sawblade and dash forward, slashing horizontally across the raider's abdomen before she can properly aim at you. She's disemboweled in one stroke, dropping her gun and falling to her knees to clutch at her guts. You take off her head on the backswing.

The dog disappears into a nearby building, visible as little more than a brownish streak. Inside, you can hear him surprise whatever poor bastard had been hiding out in there. Which leaves the next two raiders outside for you to take care of.

There's quite a bit more distance between you and them, but only one is armed - the other has something long and thin. A... pool cue? Of all the things to be carrying...

He charges you, thereby getting in the way of his companion with a gun; you neatly sidestep his swing and chop the back of his knees as he goes past. He goes down like a sack of bricks. It's... a bit disconcerting how _easy_ this is. To be fair, your blades _are_ designed to cut through even the most stubborn of branches, and really bone isn't so much sturdier than wood. Certainly humans are much easier to hit than the giant cockroaches.

You're about to try to get closer to the raider with a gun without getting shot yourself when there's a _thoom_ accompanied by a bolt of red light from above. The person on the balcony, you realize - and the raider is instantly reduced to a pile of ash. With firepower like _that_ , you're quite glad they're on your side.

You approach the balcony, a little cautiously - what might a weapon like that do to you if they shot you with it? Maybe it wouldn't _vaporize_ you, but you don't fancy the idea of finding out just how badly it might damage your eyes if nothing else. The dog returns, trotting up to your side again. He seems completely unafraid of the person on the balcony, so at least that was a good sign.

"What the hell?" the person on the balcony mutters. The voice immediately tells you that it's a man, and you can see it in the set of his shoulders, too. His outfit reminds you of the statue outside of Sanctuary Hills, although it seems a little impractical in a situation such as this. Perhaps it was for warmth? "Hey - robot? Are you on our side?" He shouts down at you. Before you can reply there is gunfire from inside the building. "Shit - listen, grab that ammo and help us, _please_!"

\- And he disappears inside the building. Well. An abrupt exist, but perhaps it was warranted. You reach down to collect the ammunition the man had indicated; they're strewn about on the asphalt next to a dead man in very un-raider-like clothes. You don't recognize the type, nor the humming weapon next to them - it must be what the balcony man is using, you figure. You don't take the rifle with you, though you're very tempted, but it's simply too unwieldy and you don't want to accidentally discharge it.

Your dog companion waits impatiently at the door into the building, shifting from foot to foot and whining. "Don't be silly," you tell him once you're finished. You open the door into the Museum of Freedom. "Of course I'll help."

* * *

There are fewer raiders inside the building than outside of it, but in here they have a distinct advantage: that of distance. You're very much not bulletproof, but they keep trying to target your eyes which makes it much easier to predict their shots and dodge them. You _could_ navigate with audio input alone, but you're not exactly keen to lose any eyes. Your depth perception is bloody awful if all three aren't in working condition.

Fortunately, you also have a secret weapon: that of the dog.

"Your skills are atrocious," you call up to the raider on the balcony. "Perhaps you ought to get your eyesight checked, good sir."

The raider replies with something impolite and attempts to shoot your eye again - only attempts, because the dog appears to have found a way around and snaps down on the man's arm. He screams and falls, and it's all the opening the dog needs.

You continue to explore the ground floor in an attempt to find a way up. Hopefully it would not involve anything steeper than a staircase. The museum's displays give you pause, and the sound system even still works. It's honestly fascinating, because if you had ever known this you had overwritten it long ago. _No more British occupation!_ , the recorded voice declares. You wonder why you'd been given a British voice if they had been America's enemies. There must have been a cultural reason, you decide; you wonder if you'll ever learn it.

The dog returns, licking blood from his muzzle but not quite managing to clean it. You tut at him and wish for a washcloth, but scratch behind his ear anyway. The dog licks your saw blade in response - just the center, far away from any cutting edges - and trots off down the hall. You follow, and together you and the dog make your way to the highest floor.

There are more raiders, but none of the others have the advantage of height, nor of distance. Besides, you can hear them from clear across the building, it wasn't like you could possibly be surprised by any of them. They might have guns, but they're not used to shooting at dogs or robots, and the hallways of the Museum are tight and twisting. By the time they've managed to take aim, well. You might be 200 years overdue for a tune-up, but you're hardly _slow_.

The last raider screams as you slice her hand clean off; both hand and weapon tumble down to the ground floor, and then the dog snaps his jaws shut on her throat and the scream stops. You scritch behind his ears again and he presses his nose to your elbow.

"We're both going to need a washing-up after this," you tell the dog. He licks his muzzle, again failing to clean it at all, and then trots off down the hall with his tail wagging.

"Uh," the man from the balcony says from just inside the doorway. You recognize him from his silhouette - humans from a distance all sort of look the same to you, but his hat and coat make him distinctive. He's black, tall and broad-shouldered like a soldier, and his voice is smooth and even-toned. You fire up the ol' facial recognition software and map his face. 49% similarity with Sir. It's a bit silly, but it makes you like him. You save the parameters.

There are four others in the room: two men, two women. All but one of the men watch you closely. You map their faces, too, except for the man whose face you can't see. One Asian, probably Chinese, one white, one mixed. The Chinese woman looks angry, while the other two don't trip any of the emotional indicators. 13 and 28% similarity to Mum in the womens' faces, 33% similarity to Sir in the man's face. They all have the markers for age, but almost everyone you've seen has them, so you don't think it means much. One of the women has considerably more, though, so you decide she's actually elderly.

The dog, you notice, has curled up at the elderly woman's feet. She's petting him, and doesn't seem to care about the blood on him.

"Thanks," the black man finally says. "I wasn't expecting... well. Thanks." He straightens up, like you'd seen Sir do - parade rest, you think it'd been called. "Preston Garvey, Commonwealth Minuteman."

Boston, you remember. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Was that what they called it now? Massachusetts was an awful mouthful, to be fair. "Codsworth," you reply, because you ought to introduce yourself, even if it is a little strange to be doing so. Had you ever told anyone in the wasteland your name? You stick out your pincer to shake his hand. "A pleasure to meet you, Mr Garvey."

Mr Garvey seems unsure of what to do with your pincer. Perhaps the concept of handshakes had fallen out of style? - but after his moment of confusion he takes your pincer and shakes it. By sight alone you can tell that he's very careful to not grip too tight or tangle himself up in the tags and necklace. A most considerate fellow.

"Likewise," Mr Garvey replies, and he really does sound pleased about it. "Glad you showed up - your timing's impeccable."

"Glad to be of assistance, Mr Garvey."

The Chinese woman scoffs before returning to her angry pacing; the man at the terminal returns to his work, whatever it is. "Well - if that's true, we could use a little more assistance. As you can see, we're in a bit of a mess here."

The man at the terminal curses under his breath, and you hear the distinctive beep of a terminal lockout. Well, of course they wouldn't know the password - it wasn't their terminal. You're not fond of people breaking into things that don't belong to them, but you'd be a bit of a hypocrite if you actually disliked them for it. Besides, they're the only people you've met in the wasteland who haven't tried to use you for either parts or target practice, and obviously the dog liked them so they couldn't be too bad. Perhaps the elderly woman was his owner?

"Oh? Do go on - I'd be glad to help in whatever way I can."

Mr Garvey sighs, running a hand over his face. You think he looks tired, but you find it hard to read these people's faces. The algorithm just doesn't match up anymore. "We're from Quincy, after the massacre - a month ago, there were 20 of us. Yesterday there were 8. Now, we're 5. First it was the ghouls in Lexington, and now this mess."

You have no idea as to what 'Quincy' is, or what happened there. Ghouls, though - you'd run into those, decades ago. You know that what they do to people is not pretty. "Oh, that's awful! I'm so sorry for your loss."

He seems taken aback by your words. "...Thanks. It's... good to meet someone who really cares." You'd expected the world to be... unkind, nowadays, but surely people cared more than that? For Mr Garvey to find comfort from you of all things? You've just met, and you're not even a _person_.

"...Anyway, we figured Concord would be a safe place to settle. Those raiders proved us wrong. But... well, we do have one idea."

You ought to encourage him, you realize. He's the only one here with a weapon that you can see - he must be at the end of his wits trying to protect these people. "One good idea can make all the difference, Mr Garvey. Don't give up hope."

The smile is back, and you congratulate yourself on a job well done. It... feels good to help people again, even if it's such a small thing like this. He looks back over his shoulder at the man attempting to get into the terminal. "Sturges?"

The man sighs and turns himself around to lean against the desk. If you squint, you can see "TERMINAL LOCKOUT" displayed on the screen. Evidently his continued attempts were fruitless. "There's a crashed vertibird up on the roof. Old school. Pre-war. You might've seen it." You hadn't; it'd been too far away to look like more than a dark smudge on a dark roof. "Well, looks like one of its passengers left behind a seriously sweet goody. We're talking a full suit of cherry T-45 Power Armor. Military issue. The idea was, get the suit, rip the minigun right off that vertibird. Raiders get an express ticket to Hell."

Crude, but effective. After your previous run-ins with raiders, you can't even really feel sorry for them. "An excellent plan, I think."

Mr Sturges nods. "Yeah. Problem is, the suit's outta juice. Probably has been for a hundred years. It can be powered up again, but we're a bit stuck..." he trails off, looking you up and down. You notice his gaze linger on your main chassis, and then your Pip-Boy.

"We need a fusion core," Mr Garvey adds. "And we know right where to get one." Well. Wasn't that ominous. Were they _really_ as nice as they seemed? This is not the first time someone has wanted you for parts, and you're sure it won't be the last. You don't want to hurt them, but if they try to dismantle you...

"But we can't get to the damn thing," Mr Sturges continues with a frustrated sigh. "It's down in the basement, locked behind a security gate. Bypassing security ain't exactly my forte." He looks you up and down again. "Buuut... I've heard Pip-Boys can connect to these terminals - both RobCo, aren't they? Mr Handies any good at reading code?"

That was _much_ better than wanting to take you apart for your fusion core. "If it were General Atomics, I could most certainly help. As it is, well - I can't say I've ever attempted it. Show me how to plug in and I'll give it the old college try, eh?"

It turns out there's a plug on the back of the terminal, which requires both Mr Sturges and Mr Garvey to rotate so you can reach. You end up with your flamethrower arm behind the terminal, leaning around it to see the screen.

The Pip-Boy has brought up a screen with lines of writing. You squint at it, at first just with one eye and then with all three. The flickering problem is not confined to the Pip-Boy, so it was definitely because of your eyes. In fact the flickering is far worse on the terminal screen. At least it was larger.

"That's not normal text, is it?" you ask. "I can see what looks like opcodes, I think. I'm afraid my eyes simply aren't good enough to parse the text fast enough - it's very flickery."

Mr Sturges looks between you and the screen. "That'd be the scan rate. Didn't expect you'd be able to see that. How do you use the Pip-Boy, anyway?"

"I've only had it a few days," you admit. "I've not quite got the hang of it yet. Here, this line here - is that the word HEART?"

There are a lot of words on the screen, it turns out. True to his word, Mr Sturges knows absolutely nothing about computer code, and despite your disadvantage re: RobCo you're clearly the most equipped to understand it all. Mr Sturges reads out each line, running his finger along the screen as he does so. It's very helpful, and you tell him as much; it allows you to learn guesses for the flickering shapes.

Most of the text is useless garbage as near as you can tell. Lots of symbols. The opcodes also appear unrelated to the actual problem to be solved, but you suppose this makes sense. Humans were generally not very good at remembering strings of numbers. In this case it's a boon for you, because you haven't any idea what most of RobCo's opcodes mean anyway.

It takes a good ten minutes to figure it all out, and by then Mr Garvey has returned to his position beside the balcony doors due to the shouts of raiders outside. It turns out that the methodology is a simple test of matching letter positions within words.

The _ding_ of an accepted password is music to all of your ears after the repeated lockouts. Mr Sturges selects one of the resultant options faster than you can read it, but from down below you hear the clunk of a gate unlocking.

" _Hell_ yes," Mr Garvey cheers. You can't help but feel quite proud of yourself - for something you'd not even been programmed to do! You _were_ meant to learn, and had you _ever_ , but this was so far beyond anything your programmers had anticipated - something uniquely _yours_ , in a way.

"Only problem now is who's gonna wear the suit," Mr Sturges ponders. He rubs his chin, leaving a large oily streak. You wish for a handkerchief. "Guess it's gonna be me. Least I've worked on one before."

"I know how," the elderly lady says in the back, very quietly.

"What?" Mr Garvey says; and the others appear equally as dumbstruck. "Mama, no, you can't -"

"Course I can't," she says, in the tone one might take with a child who has said something silly. "But I done it. A long time ago. An' I can teach Marcy. It ain't hard."

The angry Chinese woman abruptly stops in her pacing. "What?"

"Gonna need Preston on the musket, an' Sturges can't shoot worth a damn," she replies. "And you're stronger than me or Jun. Gotta be you."

Miss Marcy's jaw works, and she opens her mouth like she's going to fire back some retort. But then she nods, and clenches her fists. "Alright. Teach me. I'll pound their fucking faces in."

* * *

The wait is a bit nerve-wracking, even if you don't actually have nerves. It was decided that Mr Garvey would lay down covering fire from the balcony; you and the dog wait inside the museum at its entrance for his signal. The women are working on the power armor, you think, and you suppose the men are still in the office at the top.

You'd half expected the dog to burst out the doors the instant he'd gotten to them, but instead he stands at your side, upright and alert with his ears perked forward.

"Your hearing is much better than mine, I'm sure," you tell him, and feel a bit silly while you do it. "So if I miss anything you ought to let me know."

The dog looks up at you, briefly, and whuffs and wags his tail before going back to his vigil. Had he understood, you wonder? There were stranger things in the wasteland than an abnormally intelligent dog. Or perhaps he simply responded to your voice?

The dog doesn't need to let you know when to charge: there's an almighty _bang_ from outside, and the cracking of broken concrete - then shortly thereafter the wind-up of what must be the vertibird's minigun.

The dog shoves the door open with his shoulder before you can do it yourself, and races outside. You follow him out, saw blade at the ready.

A dozen raiders have positioned themselves throughout the nearest buildings. Some are on the roofs, but most are on the street or within the floors of the buildings themselves.

Miss Marcy stands in front of the Museum in a small crater of the power armor's making - or at least you assume it's her, it's impossible to tell. One of the raiders yells a warning mixed with a curse, and several open fire on her - and then the minigun finishes winding up and all hell breaks loose.

The volume is incredible - you're completely deafened by it. The problem is that it doesn't _stop_ , and also that you're right next to it. Down the street, two unfortunate raiders who'd been standing a bit too close together are dead before they can move, torn to shreds so violently that they practically explode. You very carefully stay out of the way - _far_ out of the way, considering her awful aim. Not that you can blame her, you suppose, considering the monster of a weapon she's using.

You head inside the nearest building rather than remain in her potential line of fire, though even that's not safe - a raider with a leg wound from a stray bullet yelps and tries to shoot out your eye the instant you enter. Nearly succeeds, too, if not for her distraction and your quick reflexes. A single sideways chop to the neck takes care of that, and you head upstairs to see if there's any others hiding up there.

There are, so you take care of them as well before Miss Marcy tries it and accidentally shoots you through the wall. You obtain your first damage: a single bullet through your chassis, but thankfully at such an angle that it punctures nothing but the shell.

The building's larger than it'd looked from ground level, thanks in part to the fact that part of it's collapsed into the next one. The minigun does not let up outside, and while you can hear over the racket you're not so sure that a human might be able to. It lets you surprise a raider, even, who is far too busy trying to shoot through Miss Marcy's armor to notice you.

Suddenly, there is an enormous _bang_.

You think, at first, that Miss Marcy must have jumped off of something again, only there's no sound of concrete shattering. At the second bang, all gunfire stops, and you poke your eye out a window to see what in the world is going on. No one else seems to have any idea, with the only remaining raider that you can see being just as puzzled as you are.

The manhole at the opposite end of the street is sent flying, completely ripped off of its hinges, and a monster climbs out.

You've heard these before. Only seen them twice in your 210 years, and that had been two times too many. You've heard them dozens of times in the night - the first time, it had fought Sanctuary Hills' feral dog pack, and killed all 12 of them. The bones, what few you could find, had been picked clean in the morning.

You realize that you have no idea where the dog is.

" _Marcy_!" Mr Garvey yells, at the same time as an unseen raider screams in terror. The monster roars, lowers its head, and _charges_.

You tear yourself away from the window to rush back outside at top speed. You will not let Miss Marcy or the dog or any of the others be killed by that creature. You will _not_.

The walls are flimsy, and you can hear everything that happens outside. The raiders and Mr Garvey immediately open fire on the monster, though the minigun is worryingly silent. You hear the scream and wet smack of a raider being flung aside, and the crunch of something of his breaking on the wall. The gunfire does nothing but anger the beast further, and it roars before charging again. Even its footfalls are loud enough to be audible over the rest of the chaos. You finally hear the subtle wind-up of the minigun again, far too late -

There's a bang, this time accompanied by the cracking of concrete, and a wordless shout from Mr Garvey. You rush out the door in time to see Miss Marcy is flat on her back, the minigun knocked aside, and the monster rearing back to smack her. You won't get there in time, there's simply no way, and you've no idea if the armor can withstand a blow like that.

The dog streaks around the corner, leaps, and latches his jaws onto the monster's throat. There's a sound like a growl, though you can't tell if it's from the dog or the monster or both of them. And then the monster smacks the dog with an open palm and knocks him clean off. What you think might be a tooth flies in the opposite direction. You see blood on the dog, and he does not move.

You reach the monster and switch on your flamethrower in the same instant that Miss Marcy regains her senses and kicks the monster in the knee, _hard_. It yowls, staggering, and you're barely able to avoid its swinging tail as it tries to correct its balance.

Your dodge carries with it a fatal flaw: you can't correct fast enough in the other direction when the monster whirls to face you and lunges. It rams you with its horns, whether on accident or on purpose you can't tell, and this bang is infinitely louder and more hollow than the others.

Every reading is nothing but _error_ , and you struggle to stay upright when you can hardly tell which way is up. Your vision is scrambled, but you can still hear the monster's breathing from scant inches away. Can't tell the precise distance, can't be sure the input is exact, but you've no time to verify and thus you strike out blindly with your saw. It hits something fleshy before digging into bone. The monster _roars_ , and even without a touch sensor you can feel the vibration of it as it rattles your arms. It's even worse than the minigun, and for a terrifying moment you've no spatial reference whatsoever.

Then you're smacked again, and this time with momentum. You've absolutely no hope of staying upright, never mind in position. The impact with the ground blacks out your vision completely, and everything turns to static as you struggle to compensate -

\- Everything returns, two seconds later. No major damage, somehow, not to anything internal, but you imagine your chassis must have a truly horrific dent in it. There's a new crack in one of your optic lenses, but you've dealt with worse. You realize you're on your side, jet tilted in the air. The worst position possible. You're not sure if you'll even be able to get up on your own, not without damaging your arms, but you try anyway.

The monster approaches, seeing that you're still moving, and you try to at least maneuver your flamethrower arm into a position to shoot at it -

\- And Miss Marcy leaps at the monster, yelling in rage and terror, and lands a punch square on its jaw. Even from your less than optimal position you can hear the crack of its jaw shattering, and the monster lets out a bellow of pain. Miss Marcy's momentum carries her straight into the creature and even then she doesn't stop, barrelling forward and directly into the wall.

The monster lets out a whine that for a moment you're sure must have come from the dog. Blood so dark that it's nearly black starts to trickle down the creature's belly, from where Miss Marcy's shoulder had rammed into its gut. The monster tries to stand, but it seems - uncoordinated, now, too disoriented to fight back properly. You realize you'd hit its eye with your blind swing.

Miss Marcy doesn't give it the chance to recover. With an inhuman shriek she leans back and punches its head once, twice, thrice - and the beast goes slack, unconscious or dead. She still doesn't stop.

By the time Mr Garvey makes it outside, the monster's face has been reduced to pulp. You can hear her crying.

"Marcy, it's _dead_!" He shouts to her. He moves like he's going to approach her, though you're not sure how smart such a thing might be considering her current state. Instead, he catches a glimpse of something over her shoulder and with a muttered _oh, shit_ he skirts around her and runs out of your view. To the dog, you think - you're fairly certain he'd been knocked that way? You hope he's alright, but Mr Garvey's reaction does not bode well for that.

You try to get up again, but with quite a bit less urgency this time. With the Pip-Boy in the way it's even more difficult, and you quickly surmise that trying to get up on your own is going to result in the eye pinned under you being cracked even worse.

It isn't long before the others emerge from inside the Museum. If there were any raiders left at all, they had certainly fled. It's Mr Sturges that approaches you, and to his credit he immediately sees precisely how you're trapped and gets down onto his knees to help push you into a more vertical position.

"You still functional?" he asks you. "Cause that looks pretty bad."

You try to get a good look at yourself. Your eyes aren't meant for that particular angle, so it's a bit difficult to see the extent of it. There is, however, no mistaking the enormous monster-shaped handprint in your side - with two furrows where the claws had torn straight through the metal. You shudder to think what it would have looked like if it had been on Miss Marcy, instead.

"Purely cosmetic, thank goodness," you reassure him. "It'd take a little more than that to stop General Atomics' finest!"

It makes him laugh, which you hadn't precisely been going for but you weren't complaining. Always better to make people happy. It's not long after that he manages to push you up enough for you to get an arm under yourself and provide some assistance. In the end you get back into the air with a minimum of fuss, and thankfully without destroying your arm servos.

Miss Marcy is still within the armor, but she's backed off from the monster and generally sounds like she's considerably calmer. The Chinese man is standing by her side, murmuring to her and tentatively touching her exposed shoulder. That seems under control, and you doubt you'd be any use anyway, so you search for the dog instead.

There is a worryingly large amount of blood on the concrete. The elderly lady is kneeling beside him, running her hands over his head. Mr Garvey is on his other side, examining the dog's torso.

"Is he alright?" You ask them.

The dog himself responds - he raises his head a little and even wags his tail slightly at you. Mr Garvey sits back, his examination concluded. "Should be fine. Lucky I had a stim on me, otherwise he'd probably be dead." He looks up at you and starts. "Whoa, what about you? That looks nasty."

"It's only cosmetic, Mr Garvey," you reassure him. Still, it's... nice to have him worry. Twice in all of one minute - the last time anyone had cared about your well-being was Mum when the bombs had fallen. Perhaps it's a bit selfish of you, but after everything, well, you think you're overdue for a little selfishness every now and again.

The elderly lady is smiling at you. You think she'd been staring while you were all in the Museum, as well - it doesn't bother you at all, it's just a bit strange. "You're not what I'd expected Dogmeat to find in that little neighborhood. But oh, so much better."

...And that was even stranger. You realize Dogmeat is the _dog_. What a godawful name. Absolutely no creativity and simply tasteless beside that. "He's a very smart dog, Madame," you respond politely. Best to not insult the name choices of people you'd only just met.

Her smile widens. Dogmeat... _The dog_ rises to his feet. He seems a little unsteady, but not like he'd just been gravely wounded by a giant lizard beast. He licks Mr Garvey's cheek, who takes the gesture with good grace, ruffling his ears in reply before turning to check on the others.

"Oh, indeed." She runs her hand along the top of the dog's head as well. He nuzzles into her hand a little, but his gaze never leaves you. So they were both going to be a bit strange and unnerving, then. "Dogmeat's good at finding folks who need him, and he'll stick by you now. I saw it."

You have no idea what that means. Humans couldn't see from Concord to Sanctuary Hills, surely? Was your vision really that much worse...? Then you realize she's referring to events that hadn't happened yet. Like the horoscopes, you think. Mum had thought them ridiculous and mocked them mercilessly. Still, wouldn't do to offend. "You saw it, Madame?" you ask, politely.

She chuckles a little. You get the feeling she's been asked exactly that in exactly that tone quite a few times. "It's the chems. They give ole Mama Murphy the Sight. Been that way for as long as I can remember. I can see a bit of what was, and what will be. And even what is, right now."

Ah. Drug-induced hallucinations. As a rule, you don't approve of any sort of recreational drug use, even when it apparently gave the user bizarre abilities. Thankfully you're saved from figuring out a diplomatic reply by the return of Mr Garvey. He offers a hand to Madame Murphy, who takes it and is pulled to her feet.

Mr Garvey turns to you, tired but smiling. "That was... I thought you and Marcy both were done for. Thanks for all your help. I don't think any of us would have made it out of here alive if it wasn't for you."

"Always glad to serve, sir," you quip. It's mostly a joke, although it's very nice that you can say it again to people. None of them seem to get it, except for Mr Sturges who snorts a bit. Couldn't win them all.

It does make Mr Garvey smile again, though it's a relieved smile more than an entertained one, you think. "Well... You know, you could come to Sanctuary with us. We could probably use the help getting settled."

You turn an eye to Madame Murphy. She smiles back at you. Her mention of your origin in a 'small neighborhood' and now this... It was all very coincidental. Perhaps too much so to be an actual coincidence, regardless of how farfetched it all was. There had been raiders over the centuries of course, and enough of them had escaped that perhaps the town name had been spread, but even that seemed like a flimsy reasoning.

You're about to say that of course you'll come with them when you remember you'd told yourself you wouldn't go back. It didn't need to be set in stone, but you didn't want to go back on your word now, not so early. And, well, you had a job to do still. Every moment you dawdled might be a moment too much.

"There's more to your destiny, isn't there?" Madame Murphy asks, before you can actually reply either way. It sounds like a rhetorical question. "I've seen it. And I know your pain."

The others are all quiet and attentive, even the dog and Miss Marcy. This... might be something more real than you'd thought. So many other strange things existed in the wasteland, why not psychic powers? Mum would scoff, but you think Sir would tell you to use all resources at hand. So you humor her. "My... pain, Madame?"

Her voice takes on a dreamlike quality. "He was a man out of time."

Sir. She's talking about Sir. How - how could she know? Sanctuary Hills, perhaps there was another explanation for that, but Sir had only been outside the Vault for two days before he'd died.

"This ain't how it was supposed to go," she continues. "No survivors. But the show's gotta go on, and you still got a part to play. You've come this far, and now you gotta go farther. You gotta find your son."

" _My_ son?" You say, because somehow that is more bizarre than the rest of it. Shaun was not _yours_ , you'd taken care of him but it simply wasn't the same.

"He's still out there," Madame Murphy continues, as though you hadn't said anything. Her grip tightens on the back of the dog's neck. "You still got hope. You still got time. You got forever... but he don't."

After everything, this is the best news you've heard in centuries. A little ominous, but if she was right and he was still alive out there then you can find him. You'd go to the ends of the Earth to do it, if you had to.

"Madame Murphy, may I ask - do you know more? Is he safe? Where might I find him?"

She shakes her head. "Oh, no... The Sight, it ain't always clear. Maybe you bring me some chems, and I'll try and see more." Mr Garvey interjects a reprimanding _Mama Murphy_ , but she waves it off. "Oh, shush Preston. We all gotta die sometime, and our new friend's gonna need the Sight. It's important, I know it."

You start to protest. You're not important. And, well, as important as Shaun is to you and your owners, you've learned the value of objectivity. In the grand scheme of things, the whole awful situation was of little impact on the wasteland.

"But even I don't need the Sight to tell you where you should start lookin'," Madame Murphy adds. "The great, green jewel of the Commonwealth. Diamond City. The biggest settlement around."

This isn't the first time you've heard this Diamond City mentioned, but it is the first time you've heard it referred to in such a way. The first mention was... seventy years ago, you think? Or near to it. An old, well-established city then.

"I've no experience with the wasteland," you confess. "This is the farthest I've ever gone from Sanctuary Hills, you see. I've no idea where Diamond City is"

"Pip-Boy's got a map, don't it?" Mr Sturges asks. He approaches, reaching for the Pip-Boy, and you willingly offer your arm to him. He goes through the menus quickly, obviously having no trouble whatsoever reading any of it. You're a little jealous.

Meanwhile, Mr Garvey approaches Miss Marcy, still a little hesitant but you can't blame him - she towers over him in the armor. The blood dripping from the armor's fists is also a little unnerving.

"I'm not getting out," Miss Marcy says before Mr Garvey can even open his mouth. She sounds very defensive, for some reason.

Mr Garvey raises his hands. "Sure. Good idea to keep it with us anyway. Just wanted to make sure you were ok."

There's a long pause, and then she nods. "Okay."

"Got it," Mr Sturges declares. You can just barely make out a small handful of symbols scattered around the map. "Okay, this is Diamond City." He points at what looks like might be a diamond - reasonable enough. "Gotta go through downtown Boston to get there, unless you go all the way around. Watch your step. Lotta nasties hanging around both in and out of the city."

He traces his fingertip over the screen, showing a route you think but it's just too hard to make out. "Path around here was mostly safe, last I took it. Months ago now, though, might not be anymore. Or there's a couple places set up down the railroad tracks here. Farms and the like. Oh, and Vault 81 is out that way somewhere." Another Vault? The railroad is a bit easier to see than the regular roads. You suppose you ought to go that way rather than through Boston itself, as much as you want to see what it's like. At least you wouldn't get lost while following a rail.

"Marked a couple other things. Few settlements, Goodneighbor, a garage we went past. Might be able to scrounge up some parts for yourself there. Quincy, too, in case you ever head down that way. Best to avoid the place though."

You wonder what had gone on down there. Raiders, you figure. You don't fancy your chances against a sizable group of them if you don't have backup, whether that backup was humans or a pack of ghouls.

"Thank you, sir, I'm most grateful," you tell him. You try to show it in your voice; he smiles at you, so you think you did a good job of it.

"Alright, folks," Mr Garvey announces. "Time to head out, no use hanging around here. We'll head up to Sanctuary - Codsworth, you said you were from there, right? So it is real?"

He sounds so hopeful, you can't imagine how awful it must have been leading this group of survivors to a place that one of its members only knew of via drug induced hallucination. Even if there really did seem to be something real about this 'Sight'.

"It's quite real," you reassure him. "I've spent the last two centuries there. Haven't had raiders for... Why, decades. I suppose it's off the beaten path."

Mr Garvey lets out a relieved sigh. Some of the tension drains from him. "Okay, great. It's just up the road, right?"

"A fifteen minute walk, and not a minute more," you promise. "Just past the Red Rocket." You hesitate. You want to help them, you really do. Not necessarily for long, but they were _nice_ and it had been so long since you've served anyone. Later, you promise yourself. After you find Shaun, you'll return, and to something more than an empty neighborhood.

"...I'm afraid I can't come with you, though," you admit. "I need to find young Sir before I return home."

Mr Garvey simply nods. "Okay. Figured as much. You do what you need to do."

It's honestly a little bit bizarre. Humans immediately trusting you and letting you make your own choices. Not that you'd _want_ to, under normal circumstances, you were more than happy serving and you missed it fiercely. Still. Not being second-guessed was lovely.

You walk with them to the crossroads outside Concord, from which you can head Southeast. The walk is a quiet affair, punctuated by each stomp of Miss Marcy's armored feet. She stumbles every now and then, clearly unused to the extra height. You're no expert when it comes to walking, but you think she's picking it up at an admirable speed. You'd say as much to her, but she still walks like she's angry so you decide it might be best to keep quiet.

You wonder what houses they'll use, which is when you realize they'll most certainly use your owners'. It was by far the most well-maintained, thanks to you. You... don't mind this as much as you ought to.

When you all reach the crossroads, you stop, and so do they. They all turn back to you.

"Mr Garvey, if I may..." You ask, very hesitantly. You're not used to asking things like this of humans - it just isn't proper. Then again, there's quite a lot of things you aren't supposed to do that you do anyway.

He's only curious, not at all irritated. "Yeah?"

"...One of the houses, it's yellow with a trimmed garden. It's my owners', and... well. I maintained it for 200 years, and I'd rather not have it all have been for nothing, as I'm sure you can understand. Could you - perhaps not occupy it? If you have to, of course I wouldn't mind, and I'm sure my owners wouldn't, but - well."

Some part of you had been expecting disregard, perhaps even a scoff. It wouldn't fit his established profile, but the thought of it was still there. Mr Garvey only nods. "Sure, we can do that. It's the least we can do for you."

It's something of a relief. Of course it didn't really matter, hadn't for over a century, but old habits die hard, as they say.

"Thank you, Mr Garvey. I really do appreciate it. And - oh." You remember the graves. Best not to disturb those. "The backyard. If you do use the house, best not to use the backyard regardless. I... I buried them there, you see."

There is a silence - a bit of a confused silence, you think. You... hadn't quite directly told them about Sir and Mum, had you?

"Oh!" Mr Garvey says in sudden realization. "Oh. Yeah, we can do that." There is a pause. "So I guess this is where we part, huh? Thanks again for all your help."

"And you, Mr Garvey," you reply, and offer your pincer for a farewell handshake. This time he takes it immediately, though he's just as careful when shaking it as he was before.

Over his head you watch Mr Sturges throw you a sort of lazy salute. The Chinese man whose name you still hadn't caught smiles at you, though it's only a small one and quite frankly he looks a little faint. Miss Marcy even nods at you a little, which you imagine for her is high praise indeed.

Mr Garvey tips his hat at you and turns to go up the hill past the Red Rocket. Madame Murphy shuffles up to you, reaching out her hand - to shake, you think, and you reach back.

Instead she clasps her withered old hands around your pincer, and runs both of her thumbs over Sir's dog tags and Mum's necklace. "You make 'em proud," she tells you. She reaches up and... pats the side of your ocular casing. It gives you a bit of a startle, and to be honest it's quite disorienting. Maybe that was why children didn't enjoy it? "You stay safe, sweetie."

Mum, you realize. Mum had said those exact words to you - the last thing either of them had said before they'd run to the Vault. You... you think you might even hear a bit of her voice in Madame Murphy's, but surely that was wishful thinking? Was this... could the Sight...?

Madame Murphy starts shuffling after Mr Garvey before you can ask her, and though you're very tempted to call her back you decide it's pointless. You're quite sure you wouldn't be able to get a straight answer out of her.

One by one, the others turn to leave with Mr Garvey. Your friends, you think. The first friends you've ever had. You wonder if this is the feeling people mean when they say 'heartwarming'. You've no heart to speak of, but... it's really very nice.

The dog lingers. Even after his master is halfway up the hill he continues to stand there, looking back and forth as if torn between the two of you. Had he accepted you into his pack that quickly? You'd have thought it would've taken longer, especially since you're not human.

Well, he couldn't come with you. As much as you liked the idea of it, he needed to stay with his master. "Off you go, pup," you tell him, and turn to leave yourself. "Your place is with Madame Murphy. I'll see you again someday, I hope."

You head off down the road, keeping one eye pointed behind you to watch as each of your new friends disappears out of sight. You wish Sir could have met them. Mum, too. They'd both have liked Mr Garvey for sure. Mr Sturges, as well, Mum would have delighted in having technical conversations with him.

The dog barks, just once, and runs to catch up to you.

He was... he was going to come with you? Not the others? You're not even really sure that's a good idea, and... _why_? The dog whines at you and noses your pincer before licking it - and the tags and necklace wrapped around it. Then he turns his big brown eyes up to you.

"...Thank you," you tell him, because you've honestly no idea what else to say. You scritch behind his ears again and his tail starts wagging.

"But," you add sternly, "I'll have you know that as soon as I find a cloth I'm going to wash your face. And perhaps give you a bath. The state of your fur is just awful, pup."

The dog whuffs at you, tongue lolling out, and trots off down the road. So this is the start of the adventure, you think, and head after him.


End file.
